WWLXX: At the Prison of Ice

[satansaloser2005]

For what it's worth, I don't think a wolf out of water (aka Mnemo....yeah, I know, I made a lame Disney pun) would do a coin flip or even suggest it, as she would know it could get her some votes.

I'm actually kind of suspicious of Shasta right now; call it a hunch. Roa seems too strange to me (and as usual, the first Day is rubbish and I'm only able to sparknotes how I think) and while Nog looks weird I trust him so far. Boro's clearly the devil.

And Mac? Bwah? I'll have to look at him toMorrow. For now though, I'll go with:

++Roa


We don't have to highlight, do we? *hates being rushed* I'll do all I can toNight to catch up and make sure we're in a better spot toMorrow.

[Thinlómien]

Originally Posted by Nienna

neither does Mnemo...

*shurg* Maybe, but worse than Inzil or Mac...

I have the feeling this'll be chaotic.

edit: xed with people again

[Macalaure]

Me 3, Mnemo 3, Inzil 3?

[Macalaure]

++Inziladun

I don't like to go there every game either...

[satansaloser2005]

Ties=Evil.

[Inziladun]

All right, Mac. I really didn't want to vote for you, since I always suspect you. But to ensure my survival:

++ Mac

[satansaloser2005]

*pulls out hair* See what I come back to?

[Thinlómien]

4-4 tie? *confusion and mess*

edit: sorry for the lateness, my computer clock is like 30 seconds late or something...

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Our discussion on that day has been far from a discussion of professional investigators. Despite the efforts of all of us to focus on our most immediate concern, our discussion kept changing forms. At first it often slipped into an academic debate. It could be seen that we were scientists - stranded and in a dire situation, but scientists nevertheless. Later however, the process thrust us into a heated dispute.

In the end the majority seemed convinced that it was our meteorologist who was responsible, but our decision was far from unambiguous. There was one unused compartment on the ship where we locked him, despite his protests. It was an act of fear which even further undermined our morale. However, at least some of us seemed hopeful enough, being convinced that we have caught the culprit. The more realistic were reminding us that there was nothing to celebrate as our communication with the outer world was still severed and our ship as much trapped as before the incident. Neither of those two groups, though, could have foreseen the full scale of horror that was to break out in this prison of ice.

By 10 AM of the following day we have split into two groups again, some staying on the ship and trying to finish what our poor lead enginer had started, some taking a trip on feet further on, towards the sole landmark nearby: the rumoured unknown island or ice floe which some have spotted the day before. As the sky lightened, we could see its shape rising against the southern sky. It was hardly an hour's walk from our place, and both of our polar biology experts encouraged us to go there. There was but a slight hope of being able to see another mark of civilation from up there, but no doubt a psychological effect also played its part. Our ship was too small for everyone to take part in the repairs, not to mention that many of us had no real experience in such matters whatsoever. Such ones would appreciate the chance to move and do something which seemed at least partially sensible. We didn't know how long we will be forced yet to stay on the ship, yet we feared that it might be too long.

LIVING MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION:

Inziladun - meteorologist
Mnemosyne - field medic
Boromir88 - senior assistant to a professor of glaciology
Eomer of the Rohirrim - sea pilot
Loslote - rich funder's spoiled daughter
Morsul - federal grants lawyer
Brinn - polar bear biologist
Pitchwife - marine biologist
Nienna - navigator
Nogrod - old palaeoecologist with is own theory of climate change
Macalaure - palaeomathematician
sally - the original initiator of the expedition
Thinlómien - whale expert
Nerwen - mechanic
Roa - survival guide
Bes - room/store manager
Shasta - sled-dog handler
wilwa - crewmember
Greenie - senior assitant to important scientists in the company
tromkehra - cook/bartender

LYNCHES:

would-be Day 1 lynchee: Inziladun

The team made the decision not to cause death on the first Day. Nobody is lynched toDay. There will also be no Night kill among the players. See this post on the admin thread for more details.

Night 2 begins. Werewolves, you may start PMing each other, but no Night kill is going to take place this time. Ranger and Hunter may start PMing too. No posting on this thread again until the next Day.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

The landmark was indeed not very far from the place where our trapped ship was now stationed. Soon we discovered that it was indeed an island, a piece of barren rock sticking out of the masses of ice, only barely covered with snow. It was the young glaciologist who remarked that in this latitude it is common for land masses to be covered with snow all year, yet recently, periods have been observed when even in such places there came occassional thaws. We did not realise yet back then what importance this fact will have for us in the very following days. But finally there was something to occupy our scientific minds with, finally after what seemed like ages a normal discussion arose. Where were we? We pitied the loss of our equipment, as we could not have been sure which particular island we are on. There were not many, not even small islands in these parts, yet no one of us has been to these particular parts of the Arctic Ocean, and we spent a lot of time arguing over the maps. At last, we decided to return to the ship.

As much as our minds have been distracted from the horrors which have occured aboard before, we could not have escaped them once we have returned. After barely a few hours of peaceful sleep, furious barking and growling could be heard from the compartments where our huskys have been stationed. Awakened by the hideous sound we all rushed to the place. The door of the first of the two rooms containing our dogs was ajar and, by the time the first of us have arrived, the sounds inside have stopped. To our horror, even from the outside we could see red stains on the floor. At last our survival guide along with the original sled-dog handler picked the courage to step in. When they emerged, they looked pale and sick; our survival guide was breathing deeply and the other man just shook his head and said: "Somebody has butchered them all."

We were all shaken. So was this another attempt to cripple our efforts to get out of here? "The meteorologist!" somebody cried, and we rushed to the compartment only to find it safely locked from the outside just as we have left it. There was no way the man would have done it, unless somebody opened the door for him and then locked him in again - yet all of us have been at the place of slaughter together. A culprit could have managed to slip among us unnoticed, but he would not have had the time to walk all the way to the other side of the ship, lock the meteorologist inside and come back again without being noticed. Pressurized by the part of our company which was against incriminating him in the first place, we released our meteorologist. As far as the butchering of our sled-dogs was concerned, he must have been innocent - unless he had an accomplice, a thought already some started to voice.

But who would do something like that? And why? What would anybody get from leaving us in this prison of ice? We found it far more reasonable to think that we are looking at the work of a dangerous madman - yet the truth, as we were to learn soon, was far more hideous.

LIVING MEMBERS OF THE EXPEDITION:

Inziladun - meteorologist
Mnemosyne - field medic
Boromir88 - senior assistant to a professor of glaciology
Eomer of the Rohirrim - sea pilot
Loslote - rich funder's spoiled daughter
Morsul - federal grants lawyer
Brinn - polar bear biologist
Pitchwife - marine biologist
Nienna - navigator
Nogrod - old palaeoecologist with is own theory of climate change
Macalaure - palaeomathematician
sally - the original initiator of the expedition
Thinlómien - whale expert
Nerwen - mechanic
Roa - survival guide - innocent (information added 1:45h after DL - see the admin thread)
Bes - room/store manager
Shasta - sled-dog handler
wilwa - crewmember
Greenie - senior assitant to important scientists in the company
tromkehra - cook/bartender

LYNCHES:

would-be Day 1 lynchee: Inziladun

Day 2 begins. Werewolves, Hunter and Ranger, stop PMing. Everyone, you may start posting here and voting for whom to lynch toDay.

[Nogrod]

Okay. I think it’s my time to come into the open then.

For those of you who don’t know it, let it be said we have a colourful past in werewolfing, Roa and I. It was Roa’s second and my first game when we first met and I was the seer who dreamt of her being a wolf on the first Night and after a full Day of single-minded pursuit by me - trying to find any possible slip and ranting on it (that newbie me!) we finally lynched her (and I was killed the next Night). After that we have played the dog and cat thing almost every game – even if to speak the truth we have been able to collaborate a few times as well.

But that’s a kind if special thing for me at least – even if I’m losing it in numbers (just remembered the first Dueling Wizards…).

But to the issue then.

I thought of Roa’s “mistake” on the number of wolves as a bluff to begin with as I couldn’t believe she would honestly miss it – whatever she much later said about her last game, or the quite clumsy defence of saying “that would be too obvious”!!! One can also say one is innocent...

But then I saw Roa jumping on Boro (and yes dear Roa, I saw you jumping, whatever you say about just disagreeing and not suspecting him – therefore I said it was not of the essence what you said you were doing.). I thought she was really trying to make Boro look bad on purpose whilst I found Boro’s remarks totally reasonable (heh, later she said it would be a trophy for me as a wolf to get an innocent loudmouth aka. her to lynch... but aren't we too similar in here; you tried the same with Boro?).

And lay and behold, it seemed to work: Nerwen followed suite in the questioning making Boro the primary object of discussions and later a few people, especially Bes, took your lead and started openly talking about Boro being suspicious.

Perfect wolvery to my eyes. But how to get more evidence for or against from the most reasonable player there is? So how to get Roa to react in a way that would reveal her alignment? I knew it wouldn’t be easy and no normal suspicion would do (I’ve learned that much during the years).


Suddenly I got the idea I thought was really great. So why not press her like “for the old times sake” and pose as someone who actually knew she was a wolf (like I was back then in our first meeting) and look how she would react to a possible “flashback from the past”? So if she was a wolf indeed, she would have to relive that first game and that might just bring her off her guard…


And before going into Roa's posts after my suspicions of her, let me just point to this as I must still note that Roa’s reaction to Boro’s post is overwhelmingly overdone and – I’d like to say - consciously misinterpreted. Just compare these.

Originally Posted by Boro

And how many times have we lynched gifteds because they need to look just as suspicious as wolves, but not too suspicious (making them look to us even more suspicious than the suspicious wolves) so the wolves don't kill them?

On the flip side, how many times do the reasonable, agreeable ones (myself often included in this, I admit) get free passes early, for being just that...reasonable and agreeable?

Originally Posted by Roa

Seriously, if we start lynching people because they make sense, I'm quitting. Of course wolves can make sense. Of course innocents could lack sense. But saying we should lynch someone because they make sense is utterly ridiculous, and exactly what the wolves would want. They want the strong rational players that aren't drawing suspicion out of the way, because an innocent who doesn't draw suspicion is one less person to get lynched in place of a wolf. What you're suggesting basically gives the wolves a lot more places to hide, and little to fear in watching their step. It is because the wolves have to pretend that we can catch them. Targeting the reasonable means that the wolves don't have to be so careful. Your whole line of reasoning is flawed, and more than that, helps the wolves.

"Roalysis" to come in a moment...

[Macalaure]

So it's basically another Day1 again? I think we should annoy Roa and start in-character posting all over again!

Ok, of course it's not a perfect Day1. While we still have zero knowledge, we already have amassed plenty of antagonism and enmity yesterDay to make for an entertaining Day.


Even though we have no knowledge of roles, the votes deserve analysing. It's of debatable use, but we don't have any better.

Morsul -> Mac (well-reasoned vote, considering how early it was)
Roa -> Nogrod (a bit knee-jerk, if you ask me. not as well-considered as I would expect it from Roa)
Brinn -> Nerwen (she mentions Nerwen's jumping on Roa's attack on Boro, something I found suspicious, too, so I'm not completely objective here)
Mnemo -> Inzil (she mentioned him and Pitch before her vote, but her reasoning is vague at best)
Green -> Mnemo (has been after her consistently, reasons seem valid)
Eomer -> Mnemo(2) (nothing mentionworthy about this vote. seems alright)
Bes -> Mac(2) (vote out of nowhere. cites Inzil's points against me as reason. not thrilled, especially since Inzil's points were already drawing on Pitch's points)
Pitch -> Mac(3) (he suspected me before, but the vote post bugs me - first he pretty much throws every accusation he can think of at me, and then he adds that it's more of a vibe thing. makes little sense in this combination and looks more like an attempt to fuel a bandwaggon)
Lommy -> Mnemo(3) (has been quite consistent, but not much in terms of reasoning)
Sally -> Roa (a throwaway. Sally hasn't provided much to analyse)
Shasta -> Inzil(2) (bites on the alternative option I tried to push. I'd like to know why he was so sure about the innocence of Mnemo and me)
Nienna -> Inzil(3) (ditto)
Nogrod -> Roa(2) (motivated by Sally's vote, I suppose. the vote alone is not suspicious)
Mac -> Inzil(4) (I was pretty afraid to cross with Inzil's expectable vote for me, I can tell you)
Inzil -> Mac(4) (self-preservation. was suspicious of me, but expressed regret that we always seem to clash. I share that regret... )
Nerwen -> Mac(5) (didn't count, but that doesn't matter. she suspected me before and does this kind of sniping frequently, but there are no posts in between "back, reading" (40 mins before deadline) and her vote. dissatisfying)

did not vote: Boro, Wilwa, trom, Lottie

[Nogrod]

Those of you who have not been around for long may find the concept of "Devil's advocate reading" on someone a strange concept. So let me explain.

"A Devil's advocate reading" of someone means that one reads another from the POV s/he is a wolf and analyses everything in that vein trying to see if that would make a believable pattern / whole. The DAR can be a mighty weapon in catching wolves but it may also backfire badly when one let's her/his imagination to run free looking only at the possible guilt.

I'm not exactly true to DAR here as I also try to see where she might be believably innocent at times, but I must admit there is a lot of it in what follows. And now as I've come clear I'd like to hear your comments Roa. After all any outstanding ordo getting killed is a great loss to us.


This is her first reaction to my suspicion:

Originally Posted by Roa

What? Huh? Really? First, you spend your posts using in character banter, and now you decide I'm guilty on a number slip? With all do respect, are you on something? This is the most ridiculous thing I've seen yet.

That might go either way… But she continues in the same vein in her next one.

What Boro said didn't make sense- he said that wolves are reasonable that gifteds aren't, implying that we ought to be lynching the reasonable ones. (By the way, you most certainly do NOT fall into that category.) Reasonableness is a terrible reason to lynch someone.

I just can’t make these interpretations of Roa and what Boro actually said to meet… And the next one is actually as much overdonme and pointless.

Originally Posted by Roa

Now who's trying to continue the debate? Oh, that would be you. By carrying on about the gifted an what they're doing, you are giving pointers to the wolves about how to spot gifted, and you're distracting the village from doing actual wolf-hunting. Not to mention the whole idea of what Boromir says discourages us from voting for people that we find suspicious for fear that they may be gifted, something that you seem keen to press on everyone while at the same time coming up with ludicrous suspicions that have no merit, further distracting the village.

I was not continuing the debate, I was taking another angle to it and finding Roa suspicious… not to say I was pointing to wolves how to spot gifteds. I mean how was I doing that Roa? I see this post as totally confusing and have a real problem seeing an innocent Roa making it.

The next post (#84) is also interesting as Roa seems really defensive – especially if what I said is totally frivolous like she says… So why bother then? There was no heavy overall suspicion on her at that point. And also she is careful enough to actually trying to make friends with Boro as well explaining her own words better than they were in the first place.

Then I think she makes an interesting move saying (in #88)

Originally Posted by Roa

A reasonable reminder of what, exactly, Nogrod? That we don't want to lynch gifteds? Well, duh, we all know that. What do you make of the second part of his statement? That wolves slip by on reasonableness? How do you take that?

Which is clearly reading another person wrong in purpose… I said Boro made a good reminder of the fact that reasonable-looking people (counting reasonable-looking wolves) tend to pass our radars and the gifteds can look suspicious because of their position and pressure. And even if I answered her second question she never commented on that – so just rhetorics?

Then we come to the heavy ammunition part…

Originally Posted by Roa

Nogrod, you say you're convinced of my guilt, but you refuse to give a reason why besides meta-gaming. And you openly state that you're looking for reasons to lynch me, meaning that you haven't actually got any.

Fair enough - as I have revealed. And I must say I felt a thorn in my side while reading this as it was true. But the continuation was a stretch to put it mildly… or should I say revealing?

Originally Posted by Roa

I am now convinced that the secret role is the cobbler, and Nogrod is it. He's clearly hinting at being the seer, which the seer Nogrod wouldn't do, because he knows better than to do something so risky. Further more, he can't be the seer, because he most certainly wouldn't attack me like this if he was. Make no mistake, this is a cobbler planning a false reveal.

A secret role… a cobbler… what an anticlimax. And as I have argued already on D1 it would be the most stupid thing to come into the center of controversy as a cobbler needs to stay alive into the Days where her/his involvement actually matters.

But interestingly Roa is now talking openly of me hinting at being the seer – as she feels like it as I’m right? – like our game long long ago perhaps? The same feeling might it be?

And a false reveal? Well a good move but sadly not one you would see.

In the next one she says.

Originally Posted by Roa

My problem is that this is the ONLY point he has against me, and yet he claims that he is absolutely convinced I'm a wolf. The fact that he has to look for reasons to lynch me is evidence of the fact that HE HASN'T GOT ANY.

I hope I have now answered your craving for other reasons to suspect you? The capital letters do suggest some desperation to me, but we do express things differently and so I’m not going to make an issue out of it as I don’t feel comfortable with it.

The continuation of that post looked like pretty smart one as ideas go…

Originally Posted by Roa

You may think that a cobbler Nogrod wouldn't go so far so fast, but I think he would- getting rid of one strong player, and forcing the village to lynch him on Day 2, means two days go by with out a dead wolf, and the village becomes significantly quieter.

But really she can’t say with this bunch of people that she and I gone the expedition-ship would be quiet… or even significantly quieter. I know many of the people around could fill the silence we ‘d leave around… and "a cobbler me" would really want to make a difference later in the game when it matters...

Then she went on to make a conditionally true statement.

Originally Posted by Roa

For one, Nogrod doesn't kill loud players when he's a wolf because he sportingly likes to get them lynched. And if he can lynch them early, well, he's done quite a feat.

Agreed. But the last sentence makes me wonder again.

Originally Posted by Roa

And it looks like he's having fun to me. I mean, I'd be laughing my butt off right now if I were in his position.

First I thought “wow, she’s making a confession!” But then I read it again and felt confused. I really don’t get the meaning of that… It so much looks like she’s saying that if she were in my position being able to press on me like I do she’d love it (so actually revealing she was really in trouble) but it couldn’t be as I don’t think Roa would slip that way…

Her last one is an interesting one as well… so answering to Eomer she says

Originally Posted by Roa

Okay, then why would he back off it instead of using it to back up his suspicions? Why rely on the poor reasoning of a slip when he could be using my disagreement with Boromir against me? There's no reason for him not to, so why?

I can see the innocent / guilty anguish there. But how about I was not in the first place willing to “make a case” on D1? How about I was just willing to find your reactions – and part of that game would be that I would not stick to whatsoever suspicion to try and “prove” your guilt, but just letting you know I was after you like I told earlier today to see how you react? To make you feel I know what you are like years ago?

Sorry Roa, that might have been a rude experiment but with the best one needs to use the most cunning methods… and by God I was wavering near the DL as I thought I might get killed the next Night. But then I reasoned it out that if I was right my death would point at Roa clearly enough and if I was wrong the amount of suspicion I had gathered could keep me alive. So I decided to watch the cards through to whatever end they were carrying me.

This “mercy-Day/Night” idea was just superb!


So what do I think myself?

Well I do still suspect Roa. There are so many things that yell wolf to me up there. But I have been looking at others as well during this no-kill Night as I had time. O just need to collect my notes into a reasonable post...


PS. Thanks for the vote-summary Mac! That was a thing I had not made yet... It will help me a lot.

[Eomer of the Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by Nogrod

Perfect wolvery to my eyes.

I like how people are still using this word. Makes me proud. According to the search engine, I coined it back in 2005 (and I don't think I stole it from anyone ).

It's still not in the dictionary.